Two hours with Snegurochka

It wasn't long enough. In the end the Opera in Depth term just concluded was eaten up, by general consent, with Der Rosenkavalier, including visits by Richard Jones and Felicity Lott (Robert Carsen would have come along, too, if he hadn't had to leave for America prematurely). I would have loved to spend longer with Rimsky-Korsakov's enchanting Snow Maiden, but I hope we managed to make a very lovely whistlestop tour of its four acts (five including prologue) in half the time it takes to perform the entire opera (usually heavily cut, as it was by Opera North in a production which still managed the magic well despite its Russian sweatshop setting. I wonder what Tcherniakov will make of it in Paris. Shortly to find out).

I find I can reproduce some of the greatest hits here, so let's start with the atmospheric Prelude. It's a good tone-poem evocation, like the design by the great Roerich below (his are also the other designs featured), of the stage directions by Alexander Ostrovsky, whose 'spring fairy tale' was the basis for Korsakov's first operatic masterpiece, and for which Tchaikovsky wrote equally delightful incidental music in 1873.

Beginning of spring. Midnight. Krasnaya Hill is covered in snow. To the right, bushes and a leafless birch grove; to the left, a dense forest of large pine and spruce trees, their branches bent low and covered with snow; in the distance at the foot of the hill a river is flowing; round its ice-holes and melted patches of water a fir-grove has been planted. On the far bank of the river the Berendeyev town....: palaces, houses, peasant cottages, all made of wood decorated with elaborate painted carvings; lights in the windows. A full moon covers everything in its silver light. In the distance, the sound of cocks crowing.The Wood Demon is sitting on a dried out tree-stump. The whole sky is filled with returning migratory birds. Spring Beauty, borne by cranes, swans and geese, descends to earth, surrounded by her retinue of birds.

This performance, from the great Yevgeny Svetlanov and his 'orchestra with a voice' (Gergiev) the USSR State Symphony Orchestra, is of the whole orchestral suite, including the chorus of birds without the delightful vocal parts, the quaint March of Tsar Berendey's Court (a model for Prokofiev's March in The Love for Three Oranges) and the best-known number, the Dance of the Tumblers from Act 3's summer revels.

We have to catch something of Snegurochka's very own personal magic. She's summoned by ill-matched parents Frost and Spring, and in her first aria tells them how she's attracted to the songs of shepherd-boy Lel and his fellow villagers. The first theme associated with her, heard in the first vocalised text, appears originally on the flute and I have no doubt that Prokofiev deliberately quoted it in the exposition round-off of his "Classical" Symphony's finale. After all, the symphony was composed in enchanting spring circumstances outside revolution-torn Petrograd. There's been a timely Decca release of Russian and other operatic arias and songs by the gorgeous Aida Garifullina, whose amazing presence the Opera in Depth class saw in DVDs of Graham Vick's Mariinsky War and Peace (special loan). The version with orchestra isn't on YouTube, but we're lucky to have this film of Garifullina performing the aria with piano at one of the Rosenblatt recitals. She's certainly musicality incarnate.

I have one complete recording with which I'm very happy, conducted by Fedoseyev with Irina Arkhipova doubling the roles of Spring Beauty and Lel. Such a distinctive sound, even if Lel's three songs could be subtler. The whole recording is on YouTube, and I link to it near the bottom here, but for now let's just pick out Lel's Third Song from the midsummer ritual of Act 3.

Other highlights include character-tenor Tsar Berendey's first aria with cello obbligato - I have an old 50s recording with Ivan Kozlovsky, an acquired taste and sadly not on YouTube. That leaves us nothing here of Act 2 other than Roerich's splendid design for Berendey's palace.

There are also fascinating comparisons to be made between Korsakov's and Tchaikovsky's scores. Though the former's dance is better known, Tchaikovsky's skomorokhi are more joyous still and their music touches on the liveliest numbers in Swan Lake, composed around the same time (early 1870s).  There's a terrific performance from Neeme Järvi and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, but the winner is an outlandish arrangement for the Osipov Balalaika Orchestra in the legendary 'first recording made with western equipment on Soviet soil'.

One passage can't be extracted here which Prokofiev describes very movingly in the autobiography of his youth commemorating Rimsky-Korsakov's death in 1908. Amongst other observations, he records his St Petersburg Conservatory professor, Nikolay Tcherepnin, saying 'When a French orchestra was rehearsing Snow Maiden in Paris (or perhaps it was Monte Carlo), the musicians were so delighted with the festive scene in the sacred wood, when Lel takes Kupava to Berendey and kisses her to the strain of a marvellous melody, that when it came time to play the melody again they suddenly put down their instruments and sang it. That was a really exciting moment'.

Our last stretch in the class was the climactic duet between Snegurochka and Mizgir, the human to whom she's finally decided to give herself - two unforgettable tunes here - her melting in the rays of the sun and the glorious hymn to Yarilo led by Lel - a tune in 11/8 time. Another Prokofiev anecdote is essential here, since Korsakov wrote two 11/8 ensembles. He's remembering a discussion of his youth with his older friend, the vet (and fellow chess player) Vasily Morolev.

In the stallion's stall he asked me. 'You mean you really don't know Rimsky-Korsakov's opera Sadko? It's a fine piece of work....In the first act there is a chorus in 11/8 time so exciting that you simply can't sit still in your seat.'

I gave a start. 'In 11/8? I know that in Snow Maiden Rimsky-Korsakov has a chorus in 11/8. and I even heard that one conductor, who simply couldn't manage to conduct the chorus, kept muttering all during the singing of it; "Rimsky-Korsakov has gone completely mad" ["Rimsky-Korsakov sovsem s uma soshel']. But when I tried it, it turned out that the phrase doesn't fit the chorus from Snow Maiden, because it comes out "completely mad"[ie with the stresses displaced].

'Wait a minute!' Morolev exclaimed excitedly. 'Maybe that phrase fits Sadko!' And he began to sing in turn 'Hail, Sadko, handsome lad' ['Goy ti Sad-Sadko, prigorii molodets'] and 'Rimsky-Korsakov has gone completely mad'

'It fits! It fits!' we shouted at the same time. And we began to sing the theme of the chorus, first with one text, then with the other [Prokofiev writes out a musical example to prove it].

No YouTube snippet of the final ensemble exists, so you can have the benefit of the entire recording. I own a good CD edition on a rare label which sounds better than this, but it will do. Zoom forward to 3'05'28 if you want the last two minutes. Listen out for the shifting chords above a fixed bass which surely gave Stravinsky the cue for the very end of The Firebird.

The only DVD we had access to in the class, not on YouTube, was the very charming and ethnographically detailed Soviet film of Ostrovsky's original play I bought from the Russian Film Council, with splendid folk music using the right kinds of voices (obviously the numbers are not Korsakov's).

The other option, if you don't mind a condensed version and you want to entertain children - or indeed, just yourself - with something rather lovely in its old-fashioned way, is a sweet Russian cartoon (with subtitles) which includes many of the musical highlights.

I ought to add by way of footnote that our previous two Opera in Depth classes had been devoted to Act 3 of Der Rosenkavalier. Apart from the usual extracts ranging far and wide, the DVD I chose to show was of Richard Jones' production from Glyndebourne. No-one has ever managed, in my experience, to make the discomfiture of Ochs pass in a flash, not to mention be funny and dark at the same time (pictured below, Lars Woldt and Tara Erraught, singers with fabulous comic instincts both, by Bill Cooper for Glyndebourne).

It soon became even more apparent that this is Jones at his meticulous best, choreographing every move with rigour, throwing out much of Hofmannsthal's detailed scenario and finding his own equivalents to match the music at every point. Had been intending to switch over to a final scene with truly great voices (Jones, Fassbaender and Popp for Carlos Kleiber or Te Kanawa, Troyanos and Blegen for Levine), but neither seemed so perceptive on the human level, so we stayed with Jones to the charming end (yes, he actually makes something warm and amusing of Mohammed's entry to retrieve - not Sophie's handkerchief but the wrap of the mistress with whom he's besotted).

Next term we move on to two lacerating studies of jealousy, close in time but musically poles apart - Verdi's Otello (Francesco Tamagno pictured above) and Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande. Ten Mondays 2.30pm to 4.30pm starting 24 April at the Frontline Club. Leave me a message here if you're interested in joining with your email: I won't publish it but I promise to reply.

Tsar's Bride preludial

One thing's for sure: the dying heroine of Rimsky-Korsakov's pseudo-historical melodrama in Paul Curran's new production for the Royal Opera, opening tonight, won't be costumed anything like Nadezhda Zabela-Vrubel in the 1899 production at Mamontov's Private Opera. Dare I hazard a guess that the silent role - what the Greeks used to call the kophon prosopon - of Ivan the Terrible might be portrayed by a Putin lookalike in a sharp suit? There'd be a precedent for that in the purpled parody of Yeltsin's embarrassing disco-dance executed by Paata Burchuladze's Tsar Dodon in Zambello's Golden Cockerel. Anyway, it's going to be oligarchs and mafia, I imagine, in sets that will look nothing like the old Bilibin design for Act 4:


No, if that's the sort of thing you want, you can see it done at not quite the highest level in the valiant efforts of the Moscow-based ballet company calling itself Les Saisons Russes du XXI Siecle at the Coli, where on Tuesday our princess even ended up with the sort of wedding headdress envisaged on the frontispiece of my Tsar's Bride vocal score (I don't dare reproduce it again here, but I think they've included a shot in the programme alongside my article). I'm very curious to know whether Curran can make cogent contemporary drama out of a very silly revenge plot.

In the meantime, having seen a perfectly traditional production at the Bolshoy starring a veteran Obraztsova, I know it's not boring and that most of the music presses the right buttons, even while it's not Rimsky in fantastical vein. The overture's a nimble corker, for a start, and I've already waxed lyrical about Borodina and Hvorostovsky in the Act 1 duet. We ought to hear the classic Arkhipova performance of Lyubasha's lovelorn aria:



And here are two clips from the rather good 1966 Russian film, which I was pleased to be able to show the students in a Kultur DVD import. Note that the good-lookers, especially the dishy Gryaznoy, are actors miming to a Svetlanov-conducted soundtrack. First let's have the lovely quartet in Act Two, modelled on a very Beethovenian moment in Glinka's A Life for the Tsar:



And finally the scene of Marfa's poisoned delirium, using the medium of film to create the illusion inherent in the music.



15/4 The results: a bit of a disappointment, though the updating started out pretty well. Full Arts Desk review here - plus a belated glimpse of what we're talking about below, one of Bill Cooper's production shots of Act 4.

Samian All Hallows' Eve

I know it's on All Souls' Day that the devout honour their dead, but we found ourselves lighting candles unbidden and unanticipated on a translucent Hallowe'en day in Samos, where for a blissful week I've been away from internet and from all music bar the mournful Greek songs interlaced with frothy Europop filling the bars and restaurants.

Leaving our eyrie on the north side of the island, which will have to wait until another day for its paean, we drove to the southern slopes of Mount Kerkis, at 1434m the second highest peak on any of the islands (Samothraki boasts the highest), and began the afternoon with a dip and a bask at Limnionas.


Here, again unanticipated, the spookiness began. I found a playing card, face down, on the beach. I held it up and later found out that our Polish friend had guessed its identity - the Ace of Spades. Betokening, we hope, not death but the day of the dead. Anyway, we drove with special care around the unfenced hairpin bends of Samos's empty western road, climbing to dramatic heights among pine forests (about 20 per cent of Samos's famous greenery burnt in 2000, but not here, nor in our north-western corner). It's a pity we pre-empted the beaches and monastery of Ioannis Eleimonas, recommended by resident German artist and neighbour Peter - we'd intended to make a second swimming stop later in the day but his other suggestion, the cave churches above Kallithea, took us longer than we'd expected.

That was not least because we parked early on the rough track up to Aghia Paraskevi and walked for an hour and a half before stopping to have a picnic. But the air was so fresh, and the views so spectacularly clear, that we could hardly regret taking our time. On our right was the ridge of Kerkis


and westwards, out to sea, the silhouette of Ikaria, a balder island with strikingly independent and sociable inhabitants, Peter told us.


Picnic was served at 4pm among the pines, and then we paid our homage to Saint Paraskevi at her tiny chapel, poetically sited with an enormous plane tree in front of it. Touching how most of these holy places, filled with icons, are left open, quite unlike the painted churches of Cyprus.


I can find out nothing about it, but I did read up concerning the saint, who went through the usual tortures unscarred in Asia Minor and, her persecuting Emperor having been blinded, restored his sight and converted him on the spot (it still didn't save her from ultimate martyrdom in Rome). And so, like Saint Lucy but with a different backstory, the eyes are her symbol, and dozens of votive offerings hung both over her picture


and on a hook to the left.


This is where we realised we were going to honour our dead on the eve, and so I lit a couple of candles to symbolise the most recent major loss (Noelle earlier this year) and my earliest (dad back in 1977).

Our destination, however, still lay ahead, up a steep rocky path marked by crosses: the church-in-the-rock of Panaghia Makrini at about 800 metres.


Again, documentation is scant other than the fact that it was founded in 800 by one of the many hermits who lived in caves on Mount Kerkis, and that its wall paintings are probably 14th century. We knew nothing about them when we arrived, so it was with a certain wonder that we took our lit tapers into the pitch-black sanctuary and found faces on the wall. Christ emerged in candlelight:


followed by disciples and prophets



Around the arches are spotted beasts, birds and fish.




So again we placed our lit tributes to our dear departed before the ikonostasis


and, walking around the cave,


had a bit of a shock when we found an open grave with skull and bones. Peter later confirmed that it hadn't been plundered but had always been like this.


And so in concern, more practical than superstitious, for the failing light, we made our way quickly down the mountainside


and arrived at the car just as Ikaria glowed in the sunset.


We hadn't seen a living soul all afternoon.

Was there any music in my head to all this? Oddly, yes - I discovered that what I was humming happened to be Marfa's song from Musorgsky's Khovanshchina, and a quick wordcheck along the lines recommended by Freud and Reik confirmed that the words of the folk melody's fifth verse were the cause:

Like candles of God
We shall burn together,
Along with our brethren in the flames,
And our souls shall rise through smoke and fire.

Admittedly Marfa is predicting the Wacko-like self-annihilation of the Old Believers, but the music is serene and glowing, and that's how my agnostic self felt as I lit the candles. Here's the great Irina Arkhipova at the Bolshoy in 1989 - another memorial tribute, because she was the favourite singer of my dear Russian friend Martin Zam, who died in his late nineties. As the scene continues, you also see another immortal, Yevgeny Nesterenko, as Dosifey.